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Production and deceleration of a pulsed beam of metastable NH ($a ^1Δ$) radicals

Sebastiaan Y. T. van de Meerakker·Irena Labazan·Steven Hoekstra·Jochen Küpper·Gerard Meijer
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Abstract

We report on the production of a pulsed molecular beam of metastable NH ($a ^1Δ$) radicals and present first results on the Stark deceleration of the NH ($a ^1Δ, J=2, MΩ=-4$) radicals from 550 m/s to 330 m/s. The decelerated molecules are excited on the spin-forbidden $A ^3Π\leftarrow a ^1Δ$ transition, and detected via their subsequent spontaneous fluorescence to the $X ^3Σ^{-}, v"=0$ ground-state. These experiments demonstrate the feasibility of our recently proposed scheme [Phys. Rev. A 64 (2001) 041401] to accumulate ground-state NH radicals in a magnetic trap.

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Sebastiaan Y. T. van de Meerakker, Irena Labazan, Steven Hoekstra, Jochen Küpper, Gerard Meijer. 2006-09-08. Production and deceleration of a pulsed beam of metastable NH ($a ^1Δ$) radicals. https://doi.org/10.1088/0953-4075/39/19/s18

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